Which RotE character is your favourite? (spoilers all RotE books)

[Farseer]

It's very odd that in the Duchies, Skill and Wit are so highly regarded that they become huge political and social issues in the kingdom, yet the southern countries seem to pay no attention to them at all.

I suppose that, since the Skill must be learned, southerners may be unaware that it exists even though some possess the capacity for it. The Wit is more of a problem since the Witted appear to use it intuitively, without the need for training. I can only conclude that the Wit is rare or absent among Southerners. Since the Wit appears to be hereditary, it is possible that the Witted never reached the South or that they were persecuted to extinction there.

WARNING! CONTAINS HIGH LEVELS OF ELFBARK

I believe that the use of the Skill is an important aspect of being a priest of Sa, they just don't know it as "the Skill". Possibly it is the same as "the Wit", particularly as residents of the Mountain Kingdom were often Witted but even, say, Kettricken, didn't know that that's what it was termed until she moved to the Six Duchies. She even came to believe that it was from her that Duitiful inherited his Wit ability. The difference is just in a name...and this could even be extended to Sa which, I believe, we will find out is exactly the same thing as El and Eda (both beliefs do have a male and female aspect after all?) but this deity is just named differently by a different group.

This could be extended even further to include the "religion" of the White Prophet...while the priests of Sa abhor and disclaim the prophecies and teaching about the White Prophet etc, I personally believe that Fool is no less a tool for these gods than any other, and that they are all the one and the same. Time will tell (or maybe not as it's Robin Hobb we're talking about!)!

It is a little like legends and stories which are alike in different parts of the RotE but just go under a different name (not unlike, say, the story of Noah's flood...apparently every major culture in our own world eg Native American, Indigenous Australian etc has its own story of a cataclysmic flood and all that is different is the various names, causes and meanings applied to that same event).

I don't have the books to quote from but I always felt that it was the Skill which Wintrow used to create his stained-glass window while at the monastery in The Magic Ship? I also always just assumed that the priests were all being trained in the Skill but they just didn't know it as a Skill training of sorts. They were just training to be priests and making something to sell for the moanstery along the way. Also even a bit of the Wit is being used, I think, as Wintrow spoke about feeling at one with the tree that he had placed in his creation, or something to that affect?

We know that the Wit is an understanding of all things in nature, not just animals, and trees, particularly those that are ancient, show themselves via the Wit (this is mentioned in a number of places throught the Farseer/Tawny Man books but a specific time would have been when Fitz was walking on the way to the town plaza, where he and Fool first saw the Rooster Crown, and he made special mention of his awareness of the trees).

The trances that Wintrow spoke of seemed very similar to the state in which a Skill-user found themselves while communicating, and also that feeling of weariness after using it for any period of time. When Wintrow had completed his window, which showed the serpent and the dragon, he felt drained and then learned that quite a great deal of time had passed while he had been in the room...more than what was healthy for him to have been in that trance-like state for so long. I am sure there was also reference made to a black substance in the immediate area (possibly the walls or floor near the room where the priests made their creations via trances) and when Wintrow came away from there, he felt his head begin to clear? This, to me, was just memory stone though the priests themselves didn't know it.

I would suggest that this trance-like could possibly even be similar to how Elderlings created their various art forms as they were well known for their creativity eg simulacra, tapestries, magical goods etc. The lady and the dragon simulacra mentioned in 'Homecoming' was exactly as those that stood dormant in the stone garden but was, instead, in the underground ruins of Trehaug where the Elderlings obviously first made their creations. The simulacra (if you don't know the term, I am speaking of the stone dragons here), once made, would leave the Elderling cities and then find a resting place in the Stone Garden. There is more on this under the Elderling Creations thread.

I believe that all characters throughout every one of the books (either in the north or the south) is experiencing the Wit, Skill or that other, different but combined-like experience of the two (which Fitz often speaks about..."it is not the Wit or the Skill but a combination of the two), but just don't know it (or know it as a different term).

Whatever it is, all are becoming more aware and more sensitive to these abilities as time goes on eg Reyn almost communicating with Malta in a Skill-like manner when Reyn was with Tintaglia and Malta was aboard the ship, somethng which Fitz and Verity etc had been doing for years...of course, Fitz was always described as sensitive and this, to me, is obviously why he is so talented in the Skill...

Even the liveships were able to help perform Skill-healings (or even Wit-healings) and lend strength where needed. They are connected but nobody knows it yet.

So much more to add but I will pause for breath here...! Sorry if I have a gazillion typos...so much to say and no time to say it in!